Thanos (Earth-11584)
History "You are at Xandar. Or at least what soon will be left of it. But you have a higher purpose for being here. You're going to tell me everything you know about the Soul Stone." Thanos is a Galactic Warlord hailing from the Planet Titan. Born into the race of beings known as the Eternals, Thanos was hailed as a prodigy from a young age, apprenticed to the elder statsemen of his planet and earmarked for greater things. As a member of the Eternals, Titan's ruling class, Thanos was effectively immortal and thus would be able to continue the planet's long life of peace and prosperity. However, Thanos became obsessed with the personification of Death, a fundamental force of the universe, and began to worship her as a goddess. He believed that Death was the ultimate equalizing force in the universe, and thus grew to hate himself for his immortality. This self-loathing drove him mad, to the point that he began to believe that, if he was truly immortal, than he must be the equal to Death herself, and thus a god. He therefore began to seek out powers to enhance his own throughout the universe. His first attempts caused him to seek out the Devourer of Worlds, Galactus. Galactus came and, bearing no mind to Thanos' quest for knowledge and power, proceeded to devour the planet Titan, leaving it a desolate wasteland and scattering the few remaining Eternals to the Cosmic Winds. Over the course of the next several millenia (by earth reckoning), Thanos continued to research the fundamental forces of the universe, and trying to find a way to equal their unbridled power. After many years of searching, he discovered the origins of the Infinity Stones, six gems created by the personifications of Eternity, Death, Infinity, Oblivion, Chaos and Order. Sensing that this was the power he had been seeking, Thanos set out to gather the stones and use their power to prove himself to the personification of Death, whom he had passed from worshiping to being infatuated with in a romantic sense. This was a longterm goal, however. He began to conquer a large area of space that came to be colloquially known as Thanos' Domain or Sanctuary. He also claimed ownership of the Chitauri, a hive mind, and used them as his foot soldiers. At some point, four beings joined him as his Black Order, taking the names of Ebony Maw, Corvus Glaive, Cull Obsidian and Proxima Midnight. In more recent years, he adopted two daughters from worlds he had conquered and destroyed, the Zehoberian Gamora and a Luphomoid named Nebula (the latter of whom he had cybernetically enhanced) to be the heirs of his galactic domain when he himself had ascended to godhood. At some point, Thanos acquired the first Infinity Stone, the Mind Stone. He also acquired a means to control the stones by way of the Infinity Gauntlet. In more modern times, Thanos' associate The Other had stumbled upon the dying Red Skull, who had been transported to Sanctuary via the Space Stone. Discovering that the Tesseract was hidden in a location in the far end of the Milky Way Galaxy, Thanos moved much of his operations (including a cradle containing the comatose body of the Red Skull, who had agreed to serve Thanos) there. Unfortunately, the resting place of the Space Stone, and the Time Stone as well, was protected by the Veil of the Nine Realms, which hid it from view through the power of Odin. Thanos thus required an inside way of getting to this place called Earth. In the meantime, he sought out the remaining three Infinity Stones. While not finding any clues on the location of the Soul or Reality Stones, he did get a lead on the Power Stone, learning that it may contained on a ruined planet known as Morag. As time passed, the opportune time to attack Earth came in the form of the Asgardian Loki. Using the Mind Stone, Loki was able to contact the criminal Taskmaster and get him to use the Space Stone to bring him to Earth. They then built a machine to use the Space Stone contained within the Tesseract to open a large portal for the Chitauri to invade, only for their plans to eventually be thwarted. However, with the Space Stone having been used so recently, Thanos was able to get a better location on Earth and send his agent, the Red Skull, back their in a spacecraft, carrying the Mind Stone and hoping to use him to sew chaos in the humans and defeat their great heroes before he himself launched a fullscale invasion again. Thanos instead focused on acquiring the Power Stone, using the space pirate Maelstrom to try and find Morag. He also sent Maelstrom his daughter's, Nebula and Gamora, to aide him in his quest. In exchange, Thanos promised to destroy the homeworld of the Nova Empire, Xandar. Eventually Maelstrom acquired the Orb (though not before Gamora had betrayed Thanos and joined with Peter Quill and the team that would become known as the Guardians of the Galaxy), but then turned on Thanos, stating that he would use the Power Stone to destroy Thanos when he was done with Xandar. As it turned out, though, Maelstrom was defeated by the Guardians, and the Nova Corps kept the stone locked away. In the meantime, Red Skull had also turned on Thanos (as had Nebula, seemingly, joining with the High Evolutionary) and sought to conquer Earth for himself. Tired of his underlings failures, Thanos called forth the Black Order and donned the Infinity Gauntlet, intending to do the job himself. His first course of action was to attack Xandar, where he was rejoined by Nebula. There he learned that not only had the Soul Stone been located by the High Evolutionary (which he had used to empower the being Adam Warlock), but the Reality Stone was in the hands of the Collector Taneleer Tivan. While Thanos was attacking Xandar, the High Evolutionary appeared before him and was interrogated by Thanos, with his final fate unknown. Seizing the Power Stone, Thanos next sought out the location of Asgard, where the Space Stone was being kept. As he had discovered, using an Infinity Stone acted as a beacon to individuals with a certain sense of cosmic awareness such as he himself possessed. Odin's repeated use of the Space Stone led Thanos to Asgard, where he sought to do battle with the Allfather to acquire his second Infinity Stone. Doing so successfully would possibly destroy the Veil of the Nine Realms as well, leading to a possible invasion of Earth... Powers & Abilities * Energy Manipulation: Thanos is able to, at least on a limited scale, manipulate cosmic energies to fire concussive blasts of energy. * Effective Immortality: As a child of the planet Titan and a descendant of the race known as the Eternals, Thanos is effectively immortal and virtually impossible to kill. Gamora even speculated it may not be possible to kill Thanos via known means. * Superhuman Strength and Durability: In addition to his immortality, Thanos has superhuman strength and durability to a degree not yet fully understood. * Army Command: Thanos normally does not engage in battle himself, employing his daughter Nebula (and formerly Gamora) as well as his Black Order to conduct most of his affairs. He has taken an interest in assembling the Infinity Stones himself, after using proxies for a number of years and seeing them fail. He also commands the Chitauri Army. * Cosmic Awareness: Like Odin and others, Thanos is attuned to the forces of the Cosmos and can sense disturbances in them, such as the repeated use of an Infinity Stone. The upshot of this is that he can then detect an Infinity Stone's use and the location of the user relative to the rest of space (this sense does not appear to extend to other realms, though, such as the Dark Dimension, or even in close proximity to it.) Weaknesses Thanos seems arrogant, but that is certainly justified given his abilities. He is often referred to as the most powerful being in the universe, though he himself will admit that's an exaggeration. He does have an obssession with the embodiment of the concept of Death, which appears to be motivating him to acquire the Six Infinity Stones. Film Details Thanos appears in the following films within the Earth-11584 continuity. In all cases he is performed (via motion capture) by actor Josh Brolin. * The Avengers (2012) * Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) * Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) * Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) * World War Hulk (2017) only * Thor: Ragnarok (2017) Category:Earth-11584 Category:Earth-11584 Characters Category:Bad Characters